Clansurf

How to contribute

You can help from anywhere in the world. Here's what contributors do, who we're looking for, and how to get in touch.

We’re looking for researchers to help shape how we design and build Clansurf. You’ll explore practical questions about communities, technology, trust, governance and how people help each other locally. Your research may help decide how people start, run and connect nodes across different communities and countries.

You don’t need a degree or a formal title. What matters is that you can show where your information comes from.

We announced the call for research contributors on X. If you came from there, welcome.

What you’d do

  • Research and develop practical use cases for Clansurf.
  • Run field surveys, locally or remotely.
  • Speak with people in your community and write down what they need.
  • Look into how communities, co-operatives and decentralised networks run themselves.
  • Gather sources and check that they’re reliable.
  • Send us your findings, ideas and recommendations.
  • Work with the other researchers and contributors around Clansurf and HuyoWorld.

Who fits

We’re looking for people who:

  • care about people, communities and what technology does to society;
  • can back up their ideas with reliable sources or real-world experience;
  • write and talk clearly;
  • are curious, independent and willing to learn;
  • research carefully and listen to different points of view.

Experience with any of these helps:

  • co-operatives or community governance
  • community organising
  • LoRa or mesh networks
  • decentralised technology
  • local community development
  • field research or interviewing
  • open-source projects

You choose how much time you give, and you can take part remotely, locally or both.

Getting started

  1. Have a readStart with how Clansurf works and the open questions.
  2. Pick a questionOr tell us about one we've missed.
  3. Write to usThree lines is enough: where you are, what you know about, and a question you'd like to take, or "not sure yet".

Sending us what you find

Email is fine, as a document or just in the message. Put your answer first, then what backs it up. Link or name every source, and tell us what you couldn’t find out.

Short is good. One clear page with good sources helps us more than a long report.

Two things we ask:

  • Don’t fill the gaps yourself. If a source doesn’t say something, please don’t say it either. “We don’t know yet” is a useful answer.
  • Ask before you quote anyone by name, including the people you speak with in your community.

What happens next

We read what you send. If it holds up, it changes these pages, and it may go into the next version of the working paper. When a page changes, its date changes too, so you can see what’s new.

Being credited

Contributors can get a named record of their contribution to Clansurf. With your permission, we credit you by name in our docs and the working paper, with your topic, what you did and your links.

Recognition depends on what you contributed and how good it is. We’ll always talk it through with you, and we publish nothing about you until you’ve approved it.

Where this can go

Research is the starting point. As Clansurf grows, researchers may become maintainers, start a node in their own community and build it with the people there.

Early access. Contributors are the first we invite to help start one of the first 25 nodes. Your research will help shape how they work.